It's Over...

Well my time at the Olympics as officially come to a close as I sit here in my dorm room typing this. My flight was overnight and God was amazing through it all, even though I was delayed about an hour and a half in Vancouver, I still made it to Lexington right on time as well as my luggage. I'm still not sure how my luggage made it being that I literally had 10 min. in the San Francisco airport. As I flew across the sky I slept a lot but began to realize that after spending a month in the real world I would have to go back to school and classes just so I can come back to the real world in five or six months. Traveling can be very tiring especially when it's overnight, by the time I got to Chicago I was exhausted and I just wanted to get to Lexington as fast as possible to stop traveling. After a very long flight, I came off the plane into baggage claim and there was a very close friend of mine, who was picking me up, standing there with open arms to welcome me home to lexington. That is such a great feeling after a long trip across the country. As we drove back to school we reflected on this time we have had in Canada and know that this is something we will all remember for the rest of our lives. In a few hours tonight some of us are getting together for one final horrah before classes start in the morning, we went into this with it feeling like a dream, and now that we are back, being back feels like a dream because we got so used to living in Canada. I am so thankful though that I have great friends at Asbury that I have been able to share this journey with and tonight after our party we start our new journey together as we all finish out school in the next semester or two. New journey you say? yes new journey. Working in the real world full time we have realized that we are ready for the real world and cannot wait for it, we are ready to leave the school world and start our lives, hence why after tonight we start a new journey and I thank the Lord everyday that I have people who are sharing this journey with me. The Olympic Journey is over and it was incredible and now it is time to start a new journey.

The End is Here

Well as you all know yesterday the Olympics ended. Also as you may know Canada won the hockey game last night and I must say what a great way to end the Olympics!! At this point you may think "what?!? but you're American" Exactly, Most of the Asburians came to the conclusion that it was better for Canada to win. You see if America had one, there would have been riots in the streets because that is how America is. When Canada wins however, everyone files into the streets singing "O Canada" and high fiving and hugging each other. Canada won the last event on home soil. When they won yesterday Whistler was not packed with riots and all that kind of stuff us Americans are used to, but yet the place was a sea of Canadian Flags and people just happy to be Alive. In my Friend Jordan Young's blog he mentioned how up here in Canada there is community of the human race celebrating progress together. My friend is so right, here in Canada it is like one big community, in fact I heard a guy on TV last night say, "You know that whole six degree of seperation thing? Well here in Canada it's more like 2 or 3, everyone knows each other." He is so right, everyone seems to know each other whether they actually do or not. Also Canadians don't complain about very much, even when they loose a game they congratulate the other team. I think a goal for many of us that have had this experience is to try not to complain about every little thing and just enjoy life and be happy. Well now I must get going and begin my trip back to the states, Again this has been an incredible experience and would go again in a heartbeat without even thinking about it.

Bittersweet feelings

Well the Olympics is almost over and the fact that this time was really almost over hadn't really hit me until last night when I received a phone call from one of our ski jump workers as she was sitting in detroit waiting for the plane to leave for lexington, at that point, knowing that we had Asburians who just a few hours earlier were in whistler were now in the states, it started to hit me, this time is almost over. As I recieved the text saying the plane had landed in Lexington KY, I realized that reality is back and it came back hard. Over the last 24 hours we have had people leaving heading back to the states now you would think this would be an exciting time but yet it's not as we have to go back to the busy schedules of classes and what not and also leaving the people we have met up here who we may never ever see again. It's bittersweet because work finally stops and we can some time to rest, however we have all fallen in love with this little town called Whistler to the point most of us would be quite happy living here. Now comes the time to leave what has been our home for the last three or four weeks. You wouldn't think you could call a place home in that short amount of time, but we could. I can see many of us returing to this place one day as we continue our journy through life. For me Reality strikes back Monday evening as I'll fly back to the states. However we may have postponed reality for one more day as on tuesday night many of us are going to try and get together and just have one last night of not worrying about classes or homework or what has to get done, as I have said in other posts we have had an incredible experience up here and we hate to see it end, but we all came into this job knowing that it was only temporary and I feel like that is one thing God has taught many of us, is things change all the time and they are not always easy as there are 50 of us going through another major change in our life. Well I will try to write tomorrow but may not be able to in which case I will be back in KY tuesday morning.

The Beginning of the End

Well this as been an Incredible Experience for all 50 of us Asburians that are up here. Today Feb. 25th was the last day for the ski jump venue where Asbury currently has 5 students working there. This hereby marks the beginning of the end. Starting at 1:15am Friday morning our first Asburian leaves Whistler, over the next 5 days the 50 of us will leave at different times. You would think this would be a bittersweet time being that our work is over and we can go back to life as it was. Well it is actually much more of a bitter ending as many of us have met and made friends with people from other countries who we will probably never see again. In talking with a friend about all this the biggest thing tugging at our hearts as this all wraps up is, were we a good example of Christ? Did we show anyone Christ? These are questions that we may never know the answers to until we get to heaven. We have all loved the experience we have had up here, we have had great times and yes there have been a few bad times but all in all this is something we will never forget for the rest of our lives. As we begin to leave we realize that we have to make another culture change. Now you may think "culture change? but you're going back to the states." Well yes we are, but we are going back to Asbury which is a culture all on it's own in a good way. We have gotten use to the way of life up here finally and now it's almost time to go back so I would ask those reading this to please pray for all of us as we start the end of our stories. Like I said we have one person leaving Whistler at 1:15am friday morning and the last one to leave does not leave until Tuesday Afternoon, I leave Sunday night on a red eye. Please pray for us as we travel back to school with very little or no sleep and pray for us as we make another adjustment in our lives and tell our stories to friends and families back in the states

God's Beautiful Creation

So I had the day off today. I have been wanting to do this Gondola ride called peak to peak for some time now. You take a Gondola ride up to the top of Whistler mountain and then another Gondola from the Peak of Whistler to the Peak of Blackcomb. Well myself and a friend of mine really wanted to do this but were waiting for nice weather. Today for both of us it was our last day off so we decided to do it regardless of the weather and the money. God blessed us and we got to do it for free but that's a story for when I get back to the states and see all of you. As we embarked on the 25 min. Gondola ride up the mountain we could see the earth beneath us and clouds above us, when we arrived at the top of Whistler moutain it was sunny and clear with Blue skies. This amazed us how this was even possible. We took the Gondola across the two peaks, it was breathtaking, we were literally surrounded my mountains, if only I could of took a 360 degree picture you could see it. Pictures just don't do this experience justice. It was amazing to see God's Creation like this. We got to go to the top of Whistler and Blackcomb mountain 2 of the most intense/famous mountains in the world. I am so glad I finally got to do this while I was here. It was wonderful also being with a fellow asburian because we could both see just how amazing this was being able to see this. Many people dream about being able to see mountains like my friend Rachael and I did today. You know those movies and dreams where mountains are everywhere, yea it was like that. We even got to walk around a bit on the top of both mountains and look out over the world, it was quite an experience. I tried to upload a picture to here, but it's not working, I will try again later, there will be pictures on my facebook of peak to peak after the Olympics are over

O Canada

Well I didn't realize it's been a week since I last blogged, it's been quite a busy week as things have really started to take off. I have learned that Alpine Skiing is a very very fast sport and extremely competitive. Skiers are within one hundredths of a second of each other and that is the difference between Gold, Silver, and Bronze. I have been fortunate enough to be able to watch the race live which has been really cool to see. The end of this week us Asburians begin to head back to the states. As we start to realize we have to go back soon we realize how much we do not want to go back and would like to just stay in Canada. We have encounter so many people up here and all Canadians are extremely friendly and willing to do whatever they can to make your stay in their country better and no one is ever in a hurry they are all just happy to be here. Many of us are starting to realize that we soon have to go back to the hussle and bussle of the states and the culture of people only caring about themselves and no one else. As I sit here and type this I begin to think that it would be so cool if those of us that have been up here go back with totally differnt attitudes and decide to be just as nice as canadians to people we pass and meet on our flights back and whoever we may run into as we continue our lives in the states. Canada is a really awesome country where everyone just looks out for another becuase after all they're all living here so why not get along. If only the states had that same attitude it would be wonderful. So as we all prepare to start heading back soon, for some of us only 6 days, some 8, some 10, as for my I have 8 days, I hope and pray that we all could have a "canadian attitude" so to speak about our country and those we meet. Well some of us are meeting for dinner soon so it's time to get off of here now

Cultures coming together

So Today was the first day that my venue actually had a race since we kept getting canceled because of weather. I got to stand on top of the grand stand and watch the race with other broadcasters. It was so cool to actually be at an event that was being broadcasted to the entire world. However it was much more of a culture experience today than a media experience which is how most days have been. It was so neat today to hear people yelling and cheering as each skier came down the mountain. The cool thing was people cheered for every skier no matter what country, so it was countries cheering for other countries which I found amazing and thought, see this is how it should be, all the countries just getting along. There were no loud outburst of something not going right or anyone complaining, something we are too used to in the states. Everyone was just happy to be there and just had a good time enjoying a sporting event. So many cultures are in on town up here right now, and yet they seem to be getting a long. Yes there are the few protestors, but the majority is just happy to be up here and experience the games with the rest of the world. This experience has already been incredible!!